


take a chance (on me)

by deathflare



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Hate to Love, Misunderstandings, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27316978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathflare/pseuds/deathflare
Summary: The thing about agreeing to do favors for Thancred is that it always comes back to bite her in the ass.
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Original Character(s), G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 29
Kudos: 106





	take a chance (on me)

**Author's Note:**

> happy spooktober! this is really only sort of halloween-adjacent while taking inspiration from some real life experiences of mine, because i can and will turn anything into wolgraha. also because anything is a good excuse to write some modern au silliness.
> 
> dedicated with love to the particularly terrified customer who almost punched me in the face the one year i was an actor instead of a decorator in my class’ yearly “haunted house for charity” project.

“Absolutely not.”

“You didn’t even let me _finish_ ,” says Thancred through a mouthful of food, which makes his already weak protest fall terribly flat. “Also, it’s for charity. Think of the children, Shiori. And of the extra credit.”

“Should a TA really be bribing a student with the promise of extra credit?”

“I’m not _bribing_ anyone—I’m just informing you of the perks of helping your dearest friends do something good.”

Shiori grabs a chicken wing from one of the half dozen takeout boxes currently scattered around her living room floor. “I’m not going to work in a haunted house, Thancred,” she says. “Have you _met_ me?”

“Unfortunately.” Shiori kicks his leg. “It’s a joke!”

“How persuasive,” she huffs. “What makes you think it’s a good idea to ask me, of all people, to be an actor in a haunted house?”

“I don’t need you to be an _actor_ ,” he says, and though she knows she’d make a terrible one she still takes offense to the face he pulls while saying the word. “I just need you to help Alphinaud set it up. The rest of us are going to be busy this coming week, so we’re really short staffed.”

“By which you mean you have no one else.”

He grins, not apologetic in the slightest. “Pretty much.”

Shiori sighs. “Who else is in on this?”

“Alisaie, who— _persuaded_ Alphinaud to help with the decorations, since much like a certain someone, he wouldn’t be a good fit to actually work on it. Urianger. Tataru. Krile. Y’shtola, believe it or not. Everyone, really.”

“Hmm,” she hums. “Anyone else?”

Thancred blinks, confused, then realization flashes through his eyes. “Really, Shiori.”

“Answer the question.”

“No, Shiori, G’raha Tia is not in on this. What even _is_ your deal with him?”

“Nothing,” she lies. “We just don’t get along. I’m not obligated to be best friends with everyone I meet, Thancred.”

“You're not—but you _are_ a terrible liar,” says Thancred. “And how do you even know you don’t get along? You've never had a proper conversation with him.”

Shiori scoffs. “Of course I have.” 

Thancred raises an eyebrow. “Other than when Krile introduced him to us and he said 'Nice to meet you, I'm G'raha Tia', and you said 'Hi, I'm Shiori?'”

“And why doesn't that qualify?”

Thancred squints at her. Shiori reaches for another chicken wing.

“Look, I’m not _trying_ to be a jerk,” she says when he doesn’t stop staring. “It’s just—I know G’raha Tia. I don’t need to 'have a proper conversation with him' for that, because I know his type.”

Thancred blinks. “His type?”

“You know.” She gestures vaguely with one hand. “Graduated two years early, skipped about a hundred grades, youngest TA on campus. Majored in egomania, now getting a PhD in narcissism. I’ve befriended my fair share of G’rahas and I have unfortunately dated at least two G’rahas, so no, I’m not inclined to give another one the time of day.”

“That’s—“

“Listen, I’ll help you guys out,” she relents, if only for him to drop the subject. “For the kids, or whatever. Let’s just not talk about that guy.”

“I knew you still had good in you,” Thancred beams. “But for the record, you really are wrong about him.”

“Sure,” she says, not convinced in the slightest, then stuffs the entire chicken wing in her mouth.

—

The thing about agreeing to do favors for Thancred is that it always comes back to bite her in the ass.

**Shiori Minami >>> evil spawn**  
would you like to explain why you neglected to tell me this thing was being set up in the single creepiest place on campus

 **evil spawn  
**think of the children, shiori

 **Shiori Minami**  
i’m murdering you in your sleep tonight

Creepiest place on campus meaning an old frat house which no one has probably set foot in in about three hundred years, and that is likely _actually_ haunted so they probably don’t even _need_ to do any work. But—fine. It’s just one day, and at least she’s going to be with Alphinaud even if they’re both hopeless cowards, because there’s no way in _hell_ she’s going to set foot into that place by herself.

**Shiori Minami >>> leveilleur 🤓**  
so  
what time tomorrow at the hellhole

She stares at her phone, then sighs.

**Shiori Minami >>> the cooler leveilleur 😎**  
please stop changing you and your brother’s contact names on my phone

 **the cooler leveilleur 😎**  
i have no idea what youre talking about

Shiori stares up at the ceiling and waits for Alphinaud’s reply, lying spread-eagle on her bed with a half eaten pint of ice cream and a bag of chips within arm’s reach. It’s eleven in the morning, she’s still in her pajamas and only Hydaelyn can judge her.

Her phone buzzes.

**my son >>> Shiori Minami**  
So  
Regarding that

 **Shiori Minami**  
please don’t say what i think you’re about to say

 **my son**  
I wasn’t expecting it either!  
I wouldn’t willingly ditch you like this  
Even if I can’t say I’m entirely unhappy I won’t be able to make it

 **Shiori Minami**  
alphinaud leveilleur i raised you on my back  
is this how you repay me

 **my son**  
Factually inaccurate, but either way  
The good news is: I already found someone who can help you in my stead!

 **Shiori Minami**  
I take offense to that but thank the gods  
who is it?  
… alphinaud??  
alphinaud what’s the bad news.

 **my son**  
Well.

Her phone buzzes again.

**[UNKNOWN NUMBER]**  
hi, shiori?  
this is g’raha tia

—

**kururu >>> Shiori Minami**  
Good morning! I heard what happened!  
So first thank you SO much for helping us, you’re a sweetheart  
And second, please be nice to Raha  
I know you have issues with him for some reason, but he’s a sweet kid who hasn’t had the easiest time in life and as much as i love you i will not hesitate to end your life if you hurt his feelings!  
Don’t tell him i said that  
Love you! <3

 **Shiori Minami**  
WELL GOOD MORNING  
i’m not that much of an asshole alright  
i can and will be civil  
but i hope that threat extends to him as well or my feelings will be hurt

 **kururu**  
It definitely does  
But Raha would sooner do it to himself than willingly hurt your feelings

 **Shiori Minami**  
what’s that supposed to mean

 **kururu**  
(:  
Good luck today!

—

Her walk to their meeting place is fairly uneventful save for this really cute dog she stops to pet on the way, which gives Shiori plenty of time to wallow in her misery and regret her decisions so far.

She has to admit it’s really nice of G’raha Tia to agree to spend the next twelve bells with her on a Saturday of all days, doing what is certainly not going to be the most pleasant work, especially on such short notice. It’s nice, really nice of him, and despite the fact this isn’t necessarily a favor for her, exactly, she feels like she’s going to _owe_ him which really, really sucks.

Granted, G’raha Tia has not actually _done_ anything to her to warrant all this hostility she feels. Their interactions have been precisely two: the time Krile had introduced them, and that one time she dropped a pen during class and he picked it up for her and she mumbled _thanks_ without looking at him and then never thought about it again.

But G’raha Tia is a _type_ , a type she’s had far too much experience with. The type that breaks up with her after two years because she’s _just too much_ , code for _you won’t make yourself smaller to appease my ego_ , like the ex she has now chosen to only refer to as Humongous Dickhead, or because _we’re just not compatible career-wise, sweetheart_ in spite of the fact that she was fully aware of Shiori’s career choices when they started dating, like her latest disappointment, Megumi. And then there are the several “friends” whose company she enjoyed until their need to assess their academic superiority by constantly putting down her own field of study grew to be too much.

So yes—she _knows_ G’raha. She’s seen him around enough, usually surrounded by people, often on the receiving end of thinly veiled attempts at flirting from both men and women—especially wide eyed freshmen, easily impressed by the handsome guy who started college at age sixteen and is already three years into getting his PhD at twenty-four. Shiori knows based on what she picked up from some of Krile’s rants that he’s studying some intense Allagan History stuff and is the star of the program, a total prodigy, has more knowledge on the subject than people twice his age and whatever other high praises she's half heard, half zoned out through.

Ugh.

It’s going to be a long day.

—

She arrives at the place fifteen minutes before the time they had settled on to find G’raha already standing there, a paper cup holder with two cups of—iced coffee?—in hand, looking towards something she can’t see. He’s wearing a red, incredibly oversized hoodie with black tricot pants and his backpack has cat ears on it.

He looks like a human-sized strawberry. He looks like the least threatening thing she has ever laid her eyes on.

Shiori blinks.

“Um,” she says.

He turns, eyes drifting towards her. A smile that’s too bright for this early in the morning tugs at his lips and makes his eyes scrunch into little half moons. What the hell.

“Hey there,” he says, giving her a little salute with his free hand. “You’re early.”

“So are you,” says Shiori, gaze falling to his hands. “And you brought coffee.”

“Tea, actually. I’ve noticed you don’t really drink coffee, so—”

“You’ve— _what?”_

G’raha blinks, expression fading into something she can only describe as bashful. Huh. “You come into Professor Rammbroes’ class every day with a cup in hand, so I just assumed—if you don’t like it, you don’t have to—”

“I do like tea,” she interrupts. “That’s, uh, nice of you.”

“Oh,” says G’raha, smile returning to his face. This close, she can see a faint dusting of freckles over his nose and cheeks. Did he always have those? Is she in hell?

He offers her one of the cups and she takes it silently, drinks it so she doesn’t have to speak. Peach green tea, she realizes with mild horror. Does he know it’s her favourite? Did he actually bother asking someone and going so out of his way just to do something nice for her?

“Okay,” she blurts out, not looking at him. “We should go inside. To do things. Work. On things.”

She turns around and heads inside the eerie, empty house, which right now feels a lot more appealing than standing outside with—gigantic strawberry G’raha Tia. G’raha Tia who woke up early on a Saturday morning to help someone he’s barely spoken to, G’raha Tia who got her favourite tea on his way here, G’raha Tia who somehow has been _watching_ her enough to know what kind of drink she likes. There’s a brief, terrible moment in which she feels the urge to find a mirror so she can fix her hair, regret over leaving home in some old, unflattering clothes. Mentally, she slaps herself.

It’s _definitely_ going to be a long day.

—

The house in question is a small, long abandoned one, and probably only not demolished yet because the administration can’t be bothered. Shiori is fairly sure no one has lived here for many, many years, but she’s surprised to find the place looks really clean once she enters, even if the emptiness of the rooms does show it has been inhabited for at least a while.

Whatever she’s thinking must show on her face, because G’raha speaks as soon as he enters after her: “Krile told me they had the place cleaned a few days ago, so all there’s left is for us to make it look creepy.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to do much, actually,” says Shiori, taking a long, resigned look at the interior and earning a little breathy chuckle from G’raha. It’s clean, yes, but the old wooden floorboards and the wallpaper that looks like it came straight out of the Fifth Umbral Era don’t do much to help it look appealing.

They spend the next thirty five minutes unboxing most of the props left for them in the living room—which includes everything from a _lot_ of fake blood, really creepy paintings and eerie looking candles to severed heads and limbs made of wax that are too realistic for comfort. There’s some more fake gore that Shiori _really_ doesn’t want to touch, so she busies herself with the boxes that are filled with fabric, some made to look bloodstained, others just ripped apart to look old and decaying. Wonderful.

“Ugh,” she groans when she opens a box to find fake spiders. “I already regret this.”

“Not a fan of bugs?”

“Not a fan of All Saints’ Wake as a whole. But no, definitely not a fan of bugs.” She picks up a severed hand. “Or gore. Remind me why people pay to see this?”

G’raha just shrugs. “How do you want to do this? I can handle the gross stuff, if it helps.”

Appealing as the offer is, this would mean they’d need to be in the same room for most of the day according to the fairly extensive list of instructions that they received, and Shiori is not emotionally prepared for that.

“That’s alright,” she says, already picking up everything she’ll need for a room preferably far away from him. “I can do it myself.”

She tries very hard not to think about the kicked puppy look G’raha gives her as she walks away.

—

Tragedy strikes about one bell later.

It happens when Shiori is almost done with her first room. She leans down to pick up a box—it’s not a particularly heavy one, but the fact she’s kind of pathetic in the physical strength department makes her struggle a bit to find a comfortable position to hold it properly. And then—

“Do you need help with that?” G’raha says from _right behind her,_ and Shiori promptly squawks and drops the box. On top of her foot.

“Oh _shit_ ,” he gasps, horrified, at the same time she yelps in pain. “I’m so sorry—are you okay?”

“Please don’t do that,” she whimpers from where she is now kneeling on the floor. “I’m— _really_ jumpy, please don’t do that.”

G’raha kneels before her, looking absolutely mortified. “I’m so sorry,” he says again. “Did I break your foot? Please tell me I didn’t break your foot.”

That thankfully doesn’t seem to be the case, mostly because the box wasn’t actually that heavy and she didn’t drop it from full standing height, plus the fact that she’s wearing very thick sneakers. Still she sits on the floor, leg stretched out in front of her.

“You didn’t.” She’s broken her foot before, and this is definitely _not_ it. “Does hurt, though.”

G’raha looks so mortified it actually makes her feel worse than the pain. She’s about to say something to reassure him it’s not actually that bad, but he sits in front of her and pulls her leg into his lap with little murmurs of “may I?” and “sorry.” and she watches in mildly stunned silence as he takes her shoe off, sock and all, presses his thumbs to the bare arch of her foot.

“Uh,” she says.

“It’s not broken,” he muses, fingers running lightly over the top of her foot, which other than being as red as her face probably currently is, seems to be perfectly fine. “You probably need to ice it, though. Hold on.”

Shiori really doesn’t think that’s necessary, but G’raha is up and out of the room before she can protest. He actually returns with an instant cold pack in hand, making Shiori furrow her eyebrows.

“Where in the world did you find that?”

“I have a first aid kit in my backpack,” he answers, like that’s a normal thing people carry with themselves on the daily.

“Your backpack,” Shiori echoes. “The one with the… cat ears.”

G’raha snorts. “That was, uh, a gift from Krile. I think she may have meant it as a joke, but I quite like it.”

“It’s cute.”

“Thanks,” he says. Shiori winces when the cold pack makes contact with her skin. “Sorry about this.”

“It’s really not that bad.” It’s true—it’s stopped hurting and she probably didn’t really need it iced, but. “And it was an accident. I’m just… jumpy. Being in this place doesn’t help.”

G’raha manages a weak smile. “I didn’t expect you to be the easily scared type.”

“Why not?”

“You just seem sort of… unshakable.”

She snorts. “I can be, for anything that doesn’t involve… this,” she gestures vaguely to the room around them. “I haven’t managed to watch a full horror movie my whole life. I’m terrible.”

“It’s cute,” he says, smiling, then seems to realize what he’s just said, eyes widening. “I mean—”

“Thanks,” Shiori says, externally. Internally, she has a crisis, puts the crisis in a box and ships it to Dalmasca.

G’raha nods, cheeks a little pink. Twelve preserve her. “This should be enough, I think. Can you stand?”

He stands himself, then offers her a hand—half covered by the oversized sleeve of his stupid hoodie—and helps her up, still kind of looking like a kicked puppy.

“Hey, I’m fine. It barely hurt.” She stomps her foot on the floor a couple times for good measure. “See?”

“Thanks, but you probably shouldn’t do that.” Fair point. “I’ll be louder next time,” he adds, weakly.

“The way I am, you should probably scream. I’ll probably scream back and anyone passing by will think we’re insane, but I’ll be less likely to drop heavy objects on my feet.”

That makes G’raha laugh, a quick and low sound, and there it is again, the mismatched eyes curling into half moons, the little flash of teeth, the damned freckles.

Ah, hells.

—

**Shiori Minami >>> soulmate <3**  
help  
ardbert help  
ARDBERT

 **soulmate <3**  
sup

 **Shiori Minami**  
i have an emergency

 **soulmate <3**  
an actual emergency or are you being dramatic as usual

 **Shiori Minami**  
rude??  
i’m always perfectly calm and collected  
but let’s say that, hypothetically  
i was having an “emotion”

 **soulmate <3**  
...elaborate

 **Shiori Minami**  
say there was someone you kind of hated based on… past experiences  
but you found out that said person was not what you thought they were  
and that they may in fact be sort of? endearing?  
and you’re kind of feeling

 **soulmate <3**  
is this about graha tia

 **Shiori Minami**  
a thing  
how the fuck do you know this

 **soulmate <3**  
lol  
shiori  
theres no one else on campus that you hate for no reason  
and who you are currently with if my sources are correct

 **Shiori Minami**  
wtf

 **soulmate <3**  
first  
you have “emotions” all the time, you just choose to ignore them  
or not so much choose as you have the emotional capacity of a rock

 **Shiori Minami**  
loving this conversation so far :)

 **soulmate <3**  
second  
i know youve been hurt in the past and though you have rejected my offers to beat at least your male exes up  
i know theres a part of you thats still hung up on what they did to you  
but i also know graha enough to say that hes just a really nice guy  
so just go ahead and feel your gooey little “emotions”  
you'll be fine

 **Shiori Minami**  
ugh  
you’re gross

 **soulmate <3**  
yea love you too buddy

—

The next few bells pass uneventfully. They were given a fairly extensive and incredibly detailed list of how the house was to be decorated, so following instructions is a mostly mindless task. Across those bells, Shiori learns that:

  1. G’raha Tia can sing.
  2. G’raha Tia sings when he’s absorbed in his work and thinks she can’t hear him.
  3. The walls in this house are very, very thin.



It’s not so much singing as it’s humming—but it’s still clear he has a beautiful voice, even if she can’t really recognize any of the songs he sings. She’s tempted to ask him what they are but she’s also afraid he’ll stop if she does so, so instead she lets the sound distract her as she busies herself with setting up fake spider webs (gross) and writing creepy messages on the walls with this paint that only shows up in the dark (fun), which turns out to be pretty soothing—at least until she starts hearing other things.

The first time it’s this quiet, kind of— _scratching_ sound, right outside the door to the room she’s in. It’s so quiet she’s almost certain she’s imagined it, and because the embarrassment of calling G’raha from across the house to check for something she isn’t even sure she heard is bigger than her fear of just looking herself, she steps out of the room and sees—nothing.

Shiori does her best to convince herself she was just hearing things, and goes back to work.

—

It’s about half a bell later when it happens: one second the sky is bright and open and the next there's rain pouring in sheets, cold wind rattling the windows and lightning cracking through the clouds; a full blown storm. And of course Shiori didn’t bring an umbrella, and of course it starts when they’re about to be done with all the work.

“I don’t suppose you have an umbrella in that backpack of yours?” she asks G’raha as they work together in the living room—or rather as _he_ works and she steadies the old, shaky stepladder he’s perched on.

He shakes his head. Apparently a first aid kit is a reasonable thing to carry, but an umbrella is not. “It wouldn’t be much use either way, with the wind the way it is right now.”

He’s right, of course, but with how much of a good job they’ve done at making this place look like something out of a horror movie, Shiori is not particularly enthusiastic about staying here longer than necessary—especially at night, and _especially_ in the middle of a storm.

It’s then that she hears something again—this time a dull _thud_ , like something heavy hitting the floor. She jumps a little, her grip on the stepladder loosening, making it rattle and almost sending G’raha down in the process. He lets out a little yelp that she would find funny were she not so terrified.

“Please don’t let me fall to my death,” says G’raha, the serenity of his tone a stark contrast to the way he’s gripping the ladder like his life depends on it.

“Sorry, sorry,” Shiori mutters. “I just—did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That _sound_ ,” she says. “It came from—the basement? Like something fell.”

“I didn’t hear anything.” He raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure it wasn’t just the rain?”

 _If it’s raining flat fucking rocks, maybe,_ she thinks. “Nevermind,” she says.

G’raha gives her a brief, puzzled glance, but continues working. Once they’re done with the ceiling—which now looks even more gross than before, cobwebs and decaying strands of fabric hanging from it—all that’s left is to clean up, which they get done fairly quickly. But the rain hasn’t let up, and it doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon, _and_ when Shiori grabs her phone to see if she can call an Uber or ask someone for a ride, she finds the words _No Service_ staring back at her.

“Are you serious,” she says.

By the way G’raha is staring at his own phone screen, she figures he isn’t faring any better. “Seems we’re stuck here for a while.”

Shiori sighs. “I wish we hadn’t done a good job at making this place look even _more_ haunted. It’s giving me the creeps.”

G’raha smiles. He opens his mouth to speak, but then there’s a sound—the very distinct, very _real_ sound of glass shattering, loud enough to hear over the downpour and the wind.

Shiori shrieks and promptly drops her phone.

“You _heard_ that,” she says. “There is no way you did not hear that.”

“I did, yes,” says G’raha, giving her a wry smile and picking her phone up from the floor. “I’m sure it’s just the wind—”

Another _crash,_ even louder this time, and clearly coming from the general direction of the stairs behind them—the stairs leading to the basement. Shiori _jumps_ and immediately clings to the first thing her hands can reach.

“Menphina’s fucking _moons_. What the _hells_ was that?”

“... Something I’m certain can be explained by reasons not related to the paranormal,” says G’raha. “And while I don’t mind you, uh, doing _that_ , I think you’re blocking my blood flow.

Shiori blinks. She realizes, belatedly, that the closest thing she could cling to happened to be G’raha’s arm, which she still has in a death grip. Great.

“Sorry,” she mutters, letting go of him and refusing to think about how _solid_ that arm felt. “I just—there’s _something_ breaking things in the basement of this abandoned house in the middle of a thunderstorm. What if it’s a ghost?”

“Shiori,” says G’raha, very slowly. “Aetherial science has precluded the idea of such things.”

Shiori beams at him. “With all due respect, G’raha, right now I could not possibly care less about what aetherial science has _precluded_ about ghosts.”

“Alright,” he says, handing her back her phone, thankfully not shattered in her panic. “I’ll go check it out, then.”

“And leave me alone here? _No.”_

“The alternatives are either we both stay here and wait for your ghost to come kill us, or we go together.”

This sucks. Everything about this day sucks, and if she makes it out alive, she’ll be making good on her earlier promise to Thancred.

“Fine,” she says with all the conviction someone who’s absolutely not fine can muster. “Let’s go.”

“... Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she lies. “I can do this. I’m tough.”

“Okay,” he says. “Do you want to hold my arm again?”

“Yes please.”

—

The basement, she has to concede, is not as terrifying as she had expected. It’s clean, as a start, no cobwebs or old blood splatters to be seen, and the light, contrary to typical horror movie fashion, does work.

Her relief lasts about four seconds.

There’s a chilly, humid gust of wind, immediately followed by a loud slam right behind them. Shiori, heroically, doesn’t scream, though she does dig her nails into G’raha’s arms so strongly she’s certain he felt it even through the fabric of his sleeve before turning around and trying, fruitlessly, to open the door again.

“No,” she says, pulling uselessly at the very sturdy, very much _jammed_ door knob. “This _cannot_ be happening.”

Another crash of thunder chooses that exact opportune moment to strike and she swears the ground _shakes_. The little shriek she lets out is one she wouldn’t admit came out of her mouth if her life depended on it.

“Are you okay?” asks G'raha, quietly, from somewhere behind her.

“Fantastic _,_ actually _”_ she says flatly. “I mean, we’re just… stuck in the basement of this very old, very haunted house, and it’s storming, and there’s no _phone signal_. I certainly couldn’t think of a better predicament to find myself in at night on the eve of All Saints’ Wake.”

“This house isn’t actually haunted,” he says like he genuinely means to reassure her, which is somehow _more_ infuriating than if he was trying to be condescending. “We’ve just—done a very good job at making it look like it is.”

Shiori sighs, leans back against the door and lets herself dramatically slump to the floor. G’raha lets out a little chuckle which, fine, at least _someone_ is having fun today.

“Well,” she sighs, coming to terms with her incoming death by either a murderous, vengeful ghost or the sheer humiliation she has suffered through this day, “at least it doesn’t get worse than this.”

Another flash of lightning.

The lights go out.

“Ah,” says G’raha, very mildly. “It definitely doesn’t.”

—

G’raha gives the doorknob a few attempts as well, but they fail miserably. The next few minutes are then spent looking around the place with only their phone flashlights and the moonbeams coming through the small window responsible for the door slam lighting their way, during which they find:

  * A lot of boxes, mostly containing belongings, she assumes, of the people who lived here before;
  * Glass jars piled up atop of a storage drawer, two lying, shattered, on the ground;
  * A shelf filled with old textbooks, save for one lying on the floor.



The jars and the books explain the sounds they’d heard, but what they _don’t_ explain is who or _what_ was responsible for knocking them off their places, considering the wind coming through the now closed window could not have reached them, nor was it strong enough to knock them off.

The bad news is: the door won’t budge, their phones still have no signal, the lights are still off and the rain hasn’t stopped. The good news, on the other hand, is that they manage to find a couple of scented candles (Frat House Basement Party, reads one, fittingly, and Freshly Signed Divorce Papers, the other, making Shiori raise her eyebrows), a box of matches and an old mattress.

The result is the two of them sitting on a mattress on the ground, an odd combination of the warn yellow light from the candles and the cool white glow from a water jug they placed on top of her phone as a makeshift lantern making G’raha’s crimson eye give off an otherworldly glow.

“Krile told me earlier that she’d come by at ten to drop off some things for tomorrow,” says G’raha. “So at the worst we’ll be here for one and a half bells.”

“If the demon that trapped us here doesn’t get us first,” she says, only half joking.

G’raha laughs, the sound echoing oddly in the emptiness of the room.

“I’m serious. It’s probably hiding, waiting for us to let our guard down.”

“I thought it was a ghost?”

“Paranormal creature of unspecified origin,” says Shiori. “Who’s going to kill us. Probably soon.”

“Not the way I expected to go, but I had a good life.”

Outside, the rain is still beating against the windows, thunder rumbling every few minutes. But inside it’s strangely cozy, even though they’re trapped in a basement, surrounded by old boxes and the power is off and she’s still not sure if she actually likes G’raha.

Or so she tells herself.

“So,” says G’raha, breaking the awkward silence. “You’re in Psychology?”

“Uh, yeah,” she replies. “Double majoring, actually. Neuroscience.”

“Wow,” he says. “Why are you taking Allagan History, then?”

“My thesis is going to be on the lasting psychological impact of living under imperial rule. Garlean, especially. And on how to best help people, especially children, work through the trauma esteeming from it,'' she answers, unintentionally honest, a swirl of discomfort low in her stomach making her cringe. Too personal. “So I figured learning the most I could about one of the biggest empires in history would do me well, maybe. Also, I just—like history.”

G’raha blinks, three times, very slowly. He stares at her for a long time while she just sits there, legs folded, chin resting atop her knees.

“What,” she says, after about thirty seconds of pure silence.

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s just—you.”

Shiori furrows her brow, confused. G’raha keeps his gaze fixed on the wall across from them.

“You know, you seem a lot more self-assured in class,” she muses. “Or anywhere other than here, today. Thought you were a social butterfly.”

She doesn’t mean for it to sound so callous, but the surprise is genuine. The G’raha Tia she’s seen today doesn’t feel much like the one she’s seen around on campus, always confident and boisterous, always surrounded by people, the little wonder boy.

“Ah, well.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I’m usually not around you.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows shoot up, the biggest shit-eating grin she can muster pulling at her lips. “Do I make you _nervous_ , G’raha Tia?”

“Yes,” says G’raha.

Her smile fades. “Wait, really?”

He finally looks at her again, clearly amused. “It can’t be the first time someone’s said that to you, right? I mean, you’re—pretty intimidating.”

“What makes me intimidating?”

“It's just the way you are.”

Shiori blinks at him. 

“I’ve heard so much about you,” G’raha continues. “That you’re double majoring and you still find time to volunteer on weekends. You take classes that aren’t even required for either of your majors and still manage to excel in them. I know people who were at risk of losing their scholarships because of their grades in classes you’re in and you tutored them for free. And your thesis—it’s like everything you do is to _help_ people.”

He shuts his mouth, looking mortified.

“You just seem like a really good person,” he says weakly. “I’m sorry this is weird. I swear I’m not a stalker—you’re just hard not to notice.”

 _You just seem like a really good person_ , echo the words in her mind, once, twice, three times.

Shiori kind of wants to dig a hole and bury herself in it, possibly forever. If her phone wasn’t being made a makeshift lamp right now she’d Moogle how to become a monk and live in self-enforced solitude for the rest of her life.

The demon, apparently, decides to take pity on her, because something _jumps_ from the shadows around them, sending another glass jar crashing into the floor. It’s enough to nearly make her jump into the air.

“What the fuck,” she whispers-screams, curling up against the wall. “What the _fuck_ was that.”

G’raha grabs his own phone, turns the flashlight on and searches around the room with it while Shiori very calmly braces herself for a painful, gruesome death. He stops after a few moments, the light fixed in a corner of the room. Then he looks back at her.

“I think we found your ghost,” he says.

—

Her ghost, as it turns out, is small. Small, white and furry, and probably sneaked into the house through one of the windows before it started raining.

Shiori sits and watches as G’raha’s expression melts into something dopey and lovestruck.

“Hello,” he coos at Ghost, scratching the fur under its chin. “Hi, pretty kitty.”

Then he turns to her, smile infuriatingly self-satisfied.

“Don’t,” she warns.

“I mean—”

“Do you have a death wish, G’raha Tia?”

He shrugs, but the shit-eating grin doesn’t leave his face. “I was just going to ask if you wanted to pet your paranormal creature of unspecified origin.”

Shiori groans, burying her face in her arms. “Fear isn’t rational, alright?”

G’raha chuckles. Ghost purrs, tail curling around his wrist. Clearly he doesn’t want G’raha to stop. Shiori can’t blame him.

“He likes you,” she says.

He hums. “Cats usually like me. Dogs, not so much.”

Shiori looks at G’raha’s own ears, flailing in time with the kitten’s own as he scratches behind its ear, and holds the urge to make the obvious joke.

“Thanks,” she says instead.

“About what?”

“What you said before.” She shifts, arms wrapping around her legs. The words _you just seem like a really good person_ echo in her mind again. “That was nice of you.”

“Ah.” He averts her eyes. “Don’t mention it.”

The occasional rumble of distant thunder is the only sound that cuts through the awkward silence that follows.

“You didn’t tell me anything about yourself,” she says.

His hand stops its movement. Ghost makes a low, unhappy sound. “What’s there to tell?” he asks, not looking at her.

“Plenty. Like why you carry a first aid kit in your backpack, but not an umbrella. How you met Krile. Why you majored in History. You seem to know a lot about me, but I don’t—really know you yet.”

But that isn’t his fault, is it?

“It’s going to be pretty boring.”

“I’ve sat through a year of professor Lahabrea’s classes. Try me.”

That makes him laugh, a short little _ha!_ under his breath, low and quiet and impossibly endearing. Ghost rolls onto his back, letting out a disgruntled meow, and G’raha resumes his petting.

There’s a long moment of silence before he speaks again.

“I wasn’t really popular as a kid,” he says, so quietly she barely catches it over the sound of rain and thunder. “Children can be—cruel, to those they think are different. And I definitely fit the bill, back then.”

He gestures vaguely to his right eye, half covered by his bangs. Shiori can tell there’s a bigger story there that doesn’t really understand, but nods all the same.

“So I buried myself in books, ended up becoming the kid who always got top marks, skipped grades. But that just made me stand out more, and keeping to myself didn’t really stop them, so I learned to take care of myself. That’s why I have that on my backpack—old habits die hard.”

Shiori takes a slow, deep breath. She wants to slap herself, really hard. Maybe give G'raha the chance to do it instead—she certainly feels like she deserves it, at this point.

“They didn’t really—hurt me, themselves. But even the occasional push or timely placed foot to send me tumbling was enough to give me plenty of cuts and bruises. Eventually I just got tired of taking trips to the chirurgeon’s office.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you, G’raha,” she says. “It’s really—it’s not right.”

G’raha shakes his head. “It’s alright. It got a lot better once I got into university. Krile, professor Rammbroes—they helped. I’m better with people now.” Then he smiles at her, kind and unassuming, and the urge to slap herself returns full force. “Enough to have you think I’m a self-assured social butterfly.”

Gods.

“I’m not a good person, G’raha.”

“What? You—”

“No, listen. I’m not. I haven’t been one to you, at least.” She sighs, running a hand through her hair. This is terrible. _She’s_ terrible. “People have made assumptions about me my whole life. I’ve always hated it, but I went ahead and did the same to you anyway.”

G’raha just looks at her, seeming genuinely puzzled by everything she’s saying. She averts her eyes and continues.

“I didn’t even _try_ to get to know you before assuming you were a certain way—the way some awful people in my past were—and I’m sorry for that. Sorry for avoiding you all this time, for missing out on all those nights our friends hung out together because _you_ were there. You’re a good person, and it wasn’t fair of me.”

She closes her eyes and waits for him to berate her, maybe take back everything he said before. It’s fine. She brought this on herself.

“Okay,” he says after several beats of silence. “You’re forgiven.”

Shiori blinks. Once, twice. “What, just like that?”

G’raha shrugs like she didn’t just confess she assumed he was a terrible person for the better part of the entire time she’s known he existed. “Why not? It’s not like you actually did anything bad to me. It’s fine.”

She doesn’t have the strength to argue. It’s not her place, anyway.

Instead, she watches. Him, sitting there in his oversized hoodie, tiny kitten under his hand, crimson hair turning to gold filaments under the artificial light. Sweet, gentle boy. Wouldn’t be so bad to be hurt by him.

“It’s not fair,” she hears herself say.

G’raha looks at her, candle flames dancing in his eyes. “What isn’t?”

“That you’re like this. That you forgave me so easily.”

He chuckles. She keeps her eyes on the curve of his lips, doesn’t blink. “What would you want me to do instead?” he asks.

Dangerous little question, but he doesn’t know it yet. Shiori rides this tide of boldness overflowing inside of her chest, lets it speak for her:

“I want you to kiss me,” she says.

Every ilm of G’raha’s body freezes at once. He stares at her, mouth agape and eyes wide. A good, incredibly agonizing twenty second pass before he manages to blurt out: “I’m sorry?”

“Kiss me,” she repeats, perching her chin on her hand. “If you want to.”

G’raha continues to look at her like she’s grown a second head. “Why would _you_ want to?”

“Because,” she says, taking a deep breath. Oh, she’s doing this. “Through the course of this day you’ve had me develop the fastest, most embarrassing crush of my life. Because you’re thoughtful and kind and funny and smart and just—a really good guy.”

“Huh,” says G’raha.

“Also because I think you’re really hot, if that helps.”

G’raha just gapes at her. Under his hand, Ghost starts to fidget, upset at the loss of his pets. Shiori starts to feel the regret bubbling low in her stomach.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to.” She forces her features into what she hopes comes across as an apologetic smile. “Sorry I made things weird.”

“No!” he yelps. Shiori winces, and he immediately deflates. “I mean, no, you’re not making things weird. I do want to—do that.”

“Oh,” says Shiori. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay!”

“Okay,” G’raha breathes, then scoots forward until he’s right in front of her. Ghost, indignant, curls up in the corner of the mattress by the wall, pointedly facing away from them. One hand comes up to brush a strand of hair away from her face while the other cups her cheek, so delicately it’s like he fears she might shatter under his touch.

He leans in.

 _Ah,_ echoes the part of her mind that doesn’t turn to static. _Ah, hells._

G’raha’s kiss is slow and gentle, almost hesitant, like he’s afraid if he gives in too much, presses on a little harder, she’s going to pull away, tell him she doesn’t actually want this. Which is—ridiculous, frankly, so she pushes forward herself, lets the kiss grow into something firm and real, earns herself a lovely little gasp of surprise from him.

That’s what it takes, it seems, for G’raha to give in.

She feels the shift in the air, the way the restraint leaves his body. Then there’s a hand moving to the back of her head to pull her _in_ , his mouth parting, sucking her bottom lip between his.

Shiori, feeling bold, feeling far gone, goes ahead and—climbs into his lap, loops her arms around his shoulders. The best decision she’s made all day, apparently, because G’raha’s hands immediately wrap themselves around her waist, so warm and so _big_ , the curve of her sides feeling even smaller under them. The kiss deepens, her mouth falling open when she breathes out, shakily. G’raha slips his tongue inside and something in her brain shuts off.

“You,” G’raha mumbles between kisses, “I’ve wanted—for so long—”

“What,” Shiori says, struggling to focus when he draws his lips away from her mouth to place them over her jaw, her neck, the column of her throat. “What do you mean?”

He chuckles, breath tickling the sensitive skin of her neck and leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. “I’ve wanted you for _months_.”

She has to run the sentence at least three times through her mind before she fully processes it. “You—what?”

“Everyone else’s been teasing me for ages.” He kisses her cheek, then leans back to smile at her, clearly amused by whatever face she’s making right now. “I think you’re the last person in all of Hydaelyn to find out.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you were still dating Megumi, back then,” he says. “And after that, well. Because it was pretty hard not to see you didn’t really like me.”

 _But Raha would sooner do it to himself than willingly hurt your feelings,_ comes Krile’s voice in her mind. _You dense motherfucker,_ comes her own voice next.

“Ugh,” she groans, burying her face into the crook of his neck. “Please kiss me again so we don’t have to talk about this.”

He laughs, coaxes her face away from its place of hiding and her lips into his again.

“Is it,” he mumbles into the kiss, “is _this_ —all you want?”

His voice grows hesitant, unsure. A deeper question beneath the words, she can tell: _do you only want me for this?_

_Do you only want me for tonight?_

“I do quite dislike All Saints’ Wake,” she says in lieu of an answer, reaching up to brush his bangs away from his eyes. “But I might forgo spending the day in my room and go out for lunch instead—if someone were to offer me company.”

The smile G’raha gives her is incandescent. “A date, then?”

“If you still want it to be after you watch me eat an entire cake by myself in ten minutes.”

“I can’t wait to see that, actually.”

“Then I guess it is.”

Outside, the rain continues to patter against the window. The lights still aren’t working and they’re still stuck inside this basement, perched precariously on an old mattress they have to share with a grumpy kitten. But as G’raha pulls her down and his lips meet teeth because she can’t stop smiling, Shiori finds that she really doesn’t mind it at all.

**Author's Note:**

> this is such a silly premise and i can't believe it became this long, but i hope you enjoyed it! as always, thank you for reading, and i would love it if you let me know your thoughts <3
> 
> you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/deathflares) and [tumblr](https://verthunder.tumblr.com/).


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